


Robin

by DarkShadowRin



Series: Timna Drake [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28195422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadowRin/pseuds/DarkShadowRin
Summary: "There's something missing with the Hardon's case. Will we be dropping by tomorrow or do you want me to go scout it out first? The evidence already surrendered to GCPD are-"Tim lean her elbows against the railing, watching Batman on the computer one floor down.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne
Series: Timna Drake [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057688
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	Robin

"There's something missing with the Hardon's case. Will we be dropping by tomorrow or do you want me to go scout it out first? The evidence already surrendered to GCPD are-"

Tim lean her elbows against the railing, watching Batman on the computer one floor down.

Tim talks about every case and loose ends there is. She doesn't stop, which is a task perhaps a bit easier than she's willing to admit. Her voice fills the corners of the cave, lilting in awkward, chopped ways because letting it flow like a report makes it easy for Bruce to zone out.

She talks about murders, robberies, and cold cases because it keeps him out of his mind and he doesn't really care very much for what her teacher's latest comments on her are and, honestly, she'd rather not talk about it either.

The cave is where Tim and Bruce are set aside for Robin and Batman. When she's here, she shrugs off the identity of Tim and all the tiny little things that builds up and makes the Drake heiress.

Her feet are light and she bounce on the balls of her feet and she can talk and think about anything here because Batman won't care and it's almost like talking to the furniture in her house to fill the too quiet halls, only better because he'll occasionally reply and she can bounce ideas and learn new things.

And she's there to wear the red -bright red so he'll always catch it in his periphery- and reel him back in when he spirals too far, to put into words what a dented batarang owned by a dead boy can't say aloud. Sometimes, she almost feels like a medium and it's not too far from the truth.

(It's as fair an exchange as it can be, between two, lonely rich kids with a generational gap.)

Sure, when she first made the decision to intervene, she never thought that she'd stay long enough to form any sort of relationship with the Batman, much less be wearing the R herself, but she's helping people, solving cases, and she found this little haven underground.

It had gone better than it could have when she first made her way to Dick Grayson's doorstep.

Mainly, she's not dead or mindwiped, or been forcefully silenced in any other way.

(As for the pain from the hits and the bruises from the falls and hurt from the failures, and the moments she'll never be able to rid herself of in her nightmares..... she likes to tell herself that being able to learn to drive cars, multiple types of planes, meeting the Justice League, and the sense of purpose and accomplishment of being a vigilante more than make up for it.)

(Her parents hasn't attended a single birthday that she can remember but, hey, just this last birthday they sent her ten different and expensive gifts, including a custom pink Heelys, and the trust implied -that's more than what eighty seven percent of Gotham girls get.)

She'd known logically that they wouldn't have hurt her but she'd had to basically confess everything just so she had a chance for Dick to believe and understand where she's coming from, and that still was one of the scariest (and most awkward) things she had to do, even now with some truly horrible experience under her belt.

Tim startle, words hitching when she realized that Batman had glided towards The Case without her notice. Less so because she didn't notice, and more because he had managed a week without soldiering in front it, at least not around her. She frowns in concern and leaps down at a distance from him.

Tim doesn't believe that he'd easily be able to move past this, but she thought they were making headway with making him semi-functional. They'd already moved past suicidal, sooner than she'd predicted, and he only forgets her presence when he's really in a funk.

And when he's in a funk, Gotham burns and him with it.

Bruce might have not expected it, might not have planned, but he was Batman now. And Batman was an idea. A symbol.

Batman was Gotham now. They lived in co-dependency that even a thirteen year old, with her unique perspective, can know isn't healthy.

But Tim isn't a miracle worker and her hubris can only go so far and that isn't some thing she can even reach.

"Bruce?"

".... Don't be like Jason."

The quiet way he breathed that out knocks something out of her own chest that she quickly tries to regain.

This guy.... She swears.

She only has the utmost respect for Jason and absolute empathy for Bruce grieving his son, but this is giving her a headache and a sense of severe dissociation whenever he says something like this.

How the fuck would she know what Jason was like? She doesn't fault them for not regaling her with stories of him, to dig up healing hurts, but they really can't expect her to know these things.

She knows Robin's stories, has glimpsed him in the air, has heard his Gotham tang taunting criminals, knows the anger that spills out of him, in a different way Dick's does, and paints the pavement with red that will forever be preserved in a photograph, but Tim is hardly holding any delusion that she knows that boy behind the mask. She doesn't even know the shade of his eyes.

But Tim bites her tongue because she might be a bit clumsy and oblivious with interactions like this, but she's at least learning when to keep her silence. Lets him speak to Robin.

They steep in that sombre silence for a long time before Batman leaves. Leaves her.

Leaves the memorial.

She stares at it. Meets the gaze of the mask.

Shivers.

Without Batman's emotions to focus on, she feels her own swell up and press on her shoulders.

She really, truly, respect her predecessor. More and more as the time she wears the colors extend and every time she escapes death by a hairds breath.

Tim hopes she's making him some sort of proud.

Because all Tim has to go on about Jason is 'the Robin before her'.

Dick sparked something in her, but Jason inspired it just because he'd been the one she witnessed in action. There's nothing quite like a little girl in a tower, titters and subtle insults passed behind her as she press herself on the glass windows, watching a boy fly even higher.

Dick Robin was a myth, a legend.

Jason Robin... Jason had been magic.

And Tim. Tim wants, needs, tries, to be something close to what he was like.

To, at least, what she thought he was like. Someone who can inspire the same way he inspired her.

Tim's thoughts are broken by a yawn and she turns to change and head home.

You know what they say. What Batman doesn't know......


End file.
